This is literally an idea I had when I was 16 years old. I was pretty dumb when I was 16.

I'm heavily into sport kites. These are controllable kites with 2 or 4 lines. It's an outdoor activity that can get fairly physical depending on what you are up to. There's a very small community, mostly focused in coastal areas, but it exists all over the world.

Once you get some basic skills, most people shift toward flying to music as a ballet individually or with a group as a team. If you get good enough, there are travel opportunities where kite festivals pay for all or part of your travel expenses to perform at festivals. I've been all over the US and to 11 countries across the world to fly kites in my 18 years in the community.

Past that, there's also kite making that is a nice extension of the hobby. I build my own sport kites, and build them for others on occasion. There are open source sport kite plans out there, I've got a few on my website (https://watty.us), but there are even more at https://kareloh.com.

A good starting place to get into the hobby might be https://sportkite.org, or some Facebook groups like Sport Kite Pilots Lounge.

I will use PayPal when making purchases, mostly to keep from giving my payment information directly to yet another company that could handle it improperly.

Not to say that PayPal wouldn't misuse the information too, but it's one company that might misuse my information vs many companies, so I'll go with the one.

JavaScript has nothing to do with Java. They are completely different languages and environments.

I found this a bit confusing, but I think the core of this is really that Waffle House staff don't get a choice on whether or not they buy a meal during their shift. Is that right?

I kind of got that gist from the article, but nothing super clear. It said that employees pay for the meal whether they eat it or not, which if you ordered food and didn't eat it, that's kinda on you. I think it should be saying that they are charged for the meal whether they ordered it or not, if that's what is happening.

Abortion rights are based on the bodily autonomy of the woman, not the status of the fetus.

Even a fully grown adult cannot use another person's body without consent.

Do they pay for these plates and IDs with cash, or with a coupon from their secret government trust?

It's hard to make time for sex when you are learning how to fly a kite from its tail. The man is defying basic physics right there.

Yes, you can blame Israelis. There is no excuse for genocide.

Anyone who codenses candidates down to a "score" or a "number is doing it wrong.

Zillow over payed for houses, then couldn't sell them as quickly as expected because the COVID housing market took a down turn, and so they sold them at a loss, lost millions of dollars, and closed the house buying business. They also made plenty of low offers or under-payed for houses at times. They were trying to break even on home value on the hole, but couldn't reign in the wild swings of gains and losses. Their entire business model was based on the seller fees, not on the house value.

In any case, they closed that business in 2021, and has since sold the rest of their inventory.

I don't see how that would have a lasting effect on housing prices though. I'd attribute it more to a housing shortage due to people buying up real estate, and keeping it as rentals. Even when operating, Zillow aimed to resell houses within 3 months, not hold on to them as investments.

You know you are being closed minded and irrational when you say "no one is going to convince me of ____".

Way to keep yourself from growing as a person and learning new things!